Airfield (7 page)

Tonight, though, I'm wondering what stories my mother would tell if she'd lived and could sit with us and add her own. What would be the memories she'd most cherish?

And, asking as the thought forms, I say, "Dad, there's another birthday present I'd like. Will you please take me for a plane ride? Just so I can know how it feels?"

Dad shakes his head, but Clo suddenly leans forward as though to challenge him. "Why not, Collin?" she asks. "Have you any reason not to let Beatty see what you find so special up there? How long are you going to cut your
daughter
off from your life?"

Dad grips the arms of his chair as though to restrain an angry answer, and I jump in to head off an argument.

"It's all right, Dad," I say. "I just thought maybe, since you seemed to consider letting me go with you that day your copilot suggested it..."

Grif, who's returned in time to hear this last, says, "There're open seats on tomorrow morning's eastbound flight, Collin. You two could have a quick lunch in Dallas and catch the westbound back."

Dad, looking cornered, finally gives a reluctant "OK."

T
HE SUN IS
streaming in the windows when I wake up, coming in so strong I know right away it's at least midmorning. I scramble out of a tangle of sheets. "Clo," I call, "what time is it? Where are you?"

"Here, Beatty," she says, opening the screen door.

"Why did you let me oversleep? Is Dad still in his cabin? We're going to miss our plane!"

"No, no. Take it easy, Beatty," Clo tells me. "You're going out this afternoon instead, taking the westbound flight as far as El Paso. Which means you'll get to eat dinner and stay in a hotel."

"Great! But why?"

"Because the pilot on the airmail milk run this morning got sick and your father offered to fill in on the next leg. He said he can connect with the afternoon flight, so all you have to do is meet him on board."

"Then I better pack a bag. Clo, don't you wish you were me?"

***

Bicycling to the airport, I can't resist stopping by Joe's Texas Auto Parts.

Joe eyes the little travel case that I've got wedged in my bike basket. "Some passenger forget that?" he asks.

"No."

"Doing another errand for your aunt?"

"No."

"I know. You're running away from home!"

"No! Joe, I'm going flying. In a plane!"

"Well, I guess, since I don't see no wings on you." He waves at the sky. "I'll be watchin'."

 

I detour by the hangar to tell Kenzie.

"Hey," I yell as I head inside, "did you hear? I'm going flying."

As my eyes adjust to the shadowed light, I make out three coveralled bodies huddled near the motor of the
Gold Lightning
plane. Something
pings
and someone says, "Dang, I thought we had it."

Then they turn, and I see they're Kenzie, Moss, and Annie Boudreau herself—all grease smeared and looking like their minds are still mostly on their work.

"Well? What'd you say?" Kenzie asks.

Feeling a little foolish, I repeat, "I just dropped by to tell you that Dad and I are going to take the afternoon plane to El Paso. So..." I try to joke but can't keep a tremor from my voice "...Lindsey Donnough's daughter is going to fly!"

"About time!" Kenzie says, and Gold Lightning, her voice sounding uneven, says, "She would have liked that."

***

"Grif?" I ask, "is Dad's plane going to be on time?"

He finishes marking changes on a weather map, working from a clipboard of hourly forecasts. Then, avoiding my eyes, he answers, "Beatty, the dispatcher in Lubbock says Collin took the mail flight on from there."

"But ... he was coming back here to take me for a plane ride."

"I'm sorry, Beatty."

"Aren't there any other pilots in Texas? Couldn't somebody else have done the mail?"

Grif shifts uncomfortably, and his silence is all the answer I need. "Dad volunteered, didn't he?" I say. "Offered to work so he could get out of taking me up?"

"Beatty, there'll be other times..."

And more times when Dad will take off instead of doing something he doesn't want to do. Why does he think it's OK to just leave things he doesn't want to deal with?

I try to talk Grif into setting things up so I can make the trip by myself, but of course he says, "Beatty, you know I can't do that."

"But—"

"Listen," he says, pointing to a pile of bulging sacks out by the scale, "five hundred pounds of experimental seed just showed up marked to go on the Tri-Motor coming in, and I've got to refigure all my load allowances. I just can't take time to talk with you now."

Outside, I jam my travel case into my bike basket. I hope Dad is feeling so guilty that he is absolutely miserable!

Over by the hangar, the
Gold Lightning
plane rolls into view, pushed by Kenzie, Moss, and Annie.

Annie climbs in the rear of the cockpit, and Moss goes around front to hand-prop the plane.

"Contact," he calls, and she shouts back, "Contact."

Grasping the top of the propeller blade, Moss pulls it down and through, jumping back as the engine comes to life.

And then I watch, unbelieving, as Moss climbs in the plane's front seat. What's he doing?

I drop my bike and run toward them while the propeller rotates faster and the plane begins moving.

"Hey!" I call. "Moss! Annie! Wait!" but my words must be drowned out in the motor noise.

"Kenzie!" I shout. "What are they doing?"

"Just takin' a test ride," he shouts back. "Checking how our adjustments are."

"But why's Moss getting to go?"

"'Cause Annie's dragging him along, making sure her mechanic's got faith in his work. And I guess to keep him from being too left out when you go off with your dad."

"But—"

Hot tears blur my view of the takeoff.

It is not fair, none of it.

Dad didn't have any business going back on his promise, and Grif ... Grif's probably glad I won't be going: He'll have an easier time getting on all that seed.

I should be glad for Moss, really. I can't begrudge him.

But if Moss is going flying, then I am, too.

 

I go back to the terminal, where Grif is hurrying to get everything done for the flight Dad and I were supposed to be on. The plane is already making its final approach.

"I'll take these for you," I say, nodding toward two suitcases that are standing near the seed sacks.

He waves his appreciation and hurries past. He's carrying paperwork, manifests showing who and what's going on the plane here, and that they won't bring the weight total to more than the airplane can lift.

I pick up the luggage and call to the couple it belongs to that it's time to come out on the ramp. They follow, watching me set their things down on a freight cart. When I return to the terminal, I have the place to myself.

Quickly I drag three of the sacks of seed into the janitor's closet, hoping that together they come in somewhere near my own 113 pounds. There're enough bags left for loading that I hope Grif won't notice three missing.

Then I go outside to wait. As I watch the plane taxi in—another Tri-Motor, a blunt-lined ship of corrugated metal well nicknamed the
Tin Goose
—I have only one question. Can I get away with this?

The plane's three propellers have barely stopped when the activity that I'm counting on begins: Kenzie hurries up in his service truck; Grif wheels over a freight cart; the plane's door opens; and the copilot escorts off the few passengers, who want to stretch their legs. They seem to gulp fresh air.

Last out is the pilot. I see my chance when he and Grif take their clipboards of papers into the shade on the plane's far side.

Now!
I think.
Go!

My heart's pounding a mile a minute, even though I can still give an excuse if I have to:
Just looking,
I might say.
I came to straighten up.

But there's nobody inside the plane, and I don't have to explain myself.

I take in the single leather seats lined up along the windows, their aluminum frames anchored to a steeply inclined linoleum floor. Seven seats on each side, fourteen altogether, the lines stretch forward toward the cockpit. Open shelves above hold a few small items, and at several places, window shades are pulled down against the afternoon sun.

Immediately to my left there's a bulkhead with a door that I open. It leads into a lavatory, clean but smelling like someone was sick in there not too long ago. The odor is enough to bring on doubts, but before I can reconsider, I hear the bumps and thumps of cargo being loaded in a wing bin and voices approaching the passenger door. Quickly I slip into the lavatory, pull the door shut, and crouch low so I won't be seen through the small porthole windows on either side.

My plan is to wait until we're in the air before I move into the passenger cabin. Then I'm going to try to slip into one of the rear seats. I doubt the other passengers will notice.

Or maybe I'm hoping, more than planning...

One part of me cannot believe I am doing this, stowing away, taking off without any idea how I'm going to return. It's the part that says I better back out now while I can.

And the other part cuts a deal.
Maybe I'll get off if I can without anybody noticing. But if I don't get the chance ... Then I'm on my way!

A man's voice calling, "Let's board," decides it.

 

For the next several minutes everything comes to me as sound. I listen to the muffled noise of people settling into their seats, and I hear clangs and knocks coming from outside the plane's thin, hot metal skin. I identify a dragging noise as Kenzie taking down the fuel hose.

There are more voices—pilot and copilot?—someone asking, "Finished your flight checks?" and then, unmistakably, the
clunk
of the door being shut.

"Welcome to you new folks," I hear a man say, the copilot, I suppose. "Everyone ready to go? Seat belts fastened? I'm afraid strong winds are going to give us more turbulence."

To my right an engine turns over and settles into a plane-vibrating roar. Another off to my left rumbles on. Then the one on the nose. The plane begins to roll forward, and suddenly I'm really scared at what I'm doing. I want to yell that the plane has to be stopped, but I can't seem to get any words out.

I feel us going faster and faster, bumping over rough ground, and I reach around for something to grab on to. And then—just when I'm expecting ... what? How will it feel to go up?—the plane stops.

For a moment I'm sure it's because I've been discovered and someone's going to jerk open the door, yank me up, and shout,
Stowaway!

But instead the motors thunder a hundred times louder, revving up as if they're being tested, and then we're rolling again.

Cautiously I stand to look out. The airfield seems to be rushing past, its uneven surface a blur. Faster and faster we go, the speed pushing me backward, and I reach for something to brace myself against. Faster ... until we're almost skimming the ground, hitting the ridges of the uneven earth ... faster...

A bad jolt throws me off balance, and though I grab at the sink and door handle to catch myself, I'm thrown to the floor. Then, as I huddle half wedged between the toilet and the wall, I feel the plane angle up. The bumping stops. I realize ... we're in the air!

An instant later the floor tilts sideways under me, and I hear someone call above the plane's noise, "Look! You can see the reservoir."

I pull myself to my feet but get only the barest glimpse out before a sudden drop throws me off balance again. The lavatory door cracks open—I must have unlatched it when I fell—and I hear someone groan, "Oooooh."

I reach out to pull the door closed, but another dip in our flight makes it swing wider open. A smell I only half noticed before—oil and exhaust and maybe old body sweat—seems to hover and then settle in a cloud around my head.

Now the plane hits that turbulence the copilot mentioned and commences really bouncing. Buffeted side to side, it bucks in sudden drops and rises.

"Talk about air pockets," someone says.

"Be glad we're not sitting in the rear," a man answers. "When it's rough here under the wings, the tail's worse."

We drop again, and this time my stomach goes halfway to my throat.

Someone calls, "Anybody got an airsick cup?"

Oh no! Why did he have to make me think about that?

The next several minutes—they seem like hours—are agony. The oil stink smothers me, the hot air is suffocating, my stomach is churning around and around....Please ... I can't let myself throw up. I can't. I can't....

"Where's those airsick cups?" a voice shouts, and through the swinging lavatory door I see a man lurching toward me.

 

The copilot puts me in a backseat. He orders, "You just stay here, Miss Donnough," in a voice so cold and hard I'm afraid to even raise the window shade.

A few minutes later I feel the plane tilt to one side as we circle around, and I understand I am not going to El Paso or anywhere else special today. I'm only going back where I started from.

T
HE TRI-MOTOR TOUCHES
down just long enough to drop me off—and I get the distinct impression the captain would have dropped me from a window if he'd thought he could have gotten away with it. As it is, he doesn't cut the Tri-Motor's engines when he stops on the airport ramp, and they throw a fine spray of oil over me as I scramble out.

I expect Grif to be furious, but when I see how drawn his face is I realize he is too worried for anger.

"I'm really sorry, Grif. I was so disappointed about my ride with Dad, and—"

"Not now," he interrupts. "I've got to do something with that seed you hid and then try to straighten out the rest of this mess."

And Kenzie, in the hangar, is blunt. "Don't you know your stunt could cost Grif his job?" he says.

"
He
didn't stow away. I did."

"But he's responsible both for this place and for you."